Bill Chappell

Bill Chappell is a writer and producer on the Newsdesk, in the heart of NPR's newsroom in Washington, D.C.

Chappell's work at NPR has ranged from being the site's first full-time homepage editor to being the lead writer and editor for online coverage of several Olympic Games, from London 2012 to Pyeongchang 2018. His assignments have included being the lead web producer for NPR's trip to Asia's Grand Trunk Road, as well as establishing the Peabody Award-winning StoryCorps on NPR.org.

In the past, Chappell has edited and coordinated digital features for Morning Edition and Fresh Air, in addition to editing the rundown of All Things Considered. He frequently contributes to other NPR blogs, such as All Tech Considered and The Salt.

In 2009, Chappell was a key editorial member of the small team that redesigned NPR's web site. One year later, NPR.org won its first Peabody Award, along with the National Press Foundation's Excellence in Online Journalism award.

At NPR, Chappell has trained both digital and radio staff to use digital tools to tell compelling stories, in addition to "evangelizing" — promoting more collaboration between legacy and digital departments.

Prior to joining NPR, Chappell was part of the Assignment Desk at CNN International, handling coverage in areas from the Middle East, Asia, Africa, Europe, and Latin America, and coordinating CNN's pool coverage on major events.

Chappell's work for CNN included editing digital video and producing web stories for SI.com. He also edited and produced stories for CNN.com's features division.

Before joining CNN, Chappell wrote about movies, restaurants and music for alternative weeklies, in addition to his first job: editing the police blotter.

A holder of bachelor's degrees in English and History from the University of Georgia, Chappell attended graduate school for English Literature at the University of South Carolina.

Bike share company Ofo left an unwelcome parting gift as it exited the Dallas market: a heap of hundreds of its banana-yellow bikes. A photo of the massive pile went viral, prompting questions about who is responsible for the rental bikes — and the fate of similar bike-share ventures in other cities.

"Terrible," Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings said in a tweet that featured a photo by Robert Vandling, who spotted the tangle of bikes at a collection center run by CMC Recycling American.

YouTube, Apple and Facebook have removed main outlets for conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and his Infowars website, citing repeated violations of policies against hate speech and glorifying violence. Infowars responded by accusing the companies of censorship.

The streaming service Spotify also expanded a ban imposed last week on some of Jones' content, saying Monday that "The Alex Jones Show has lost access to the Spotify platform."

On Sunday, Apple and iTunes deleted five podcasts related to Infowars and Jones. The other bans then piled up in quick succession.

Joël Robuchon, one of the most accomplished and decorated chefs in history, has died at age 73, after a career devoted to injecting new creativity into French cooking and exploring other cuisines. Robuchon had cancer; his death was confirmed on Monday by a spokeswoman at his company in Paris.

Robuchon won more than 30 Michelin stars — more than any other chef in the world, according to his website. His company operated more than 20 restaurants from New York to Bangkok.

The purported remains of Americans who died in the Korean War arrived in Hawaii on Wednesday, escorted in a solemn ceremony onto U.S. soil 65 years after the conflict ended.

They'll be analyzed in hopes of providing a new sense of closure for families who lost loved ones in the war that ended with a cease-fire in 1953. But it could be weeks or years before the identities of any Americans are confirmed.

A judge has sentenced a former leader of the Penn State fraternity to three months of house arrest over the hazing death of Timothy Piazza last year. Ryan Burke, who was in charge of recruitment at Beta Theta Pi fraternity, is the first person to plead guilty in the case.

Burke admitted to hazing and other crimes. He is one of more than 20 defendants to face charges after investigators recovered evidence from a night in February 2017, when Piazza, 19, suffered serious injuries from a fall after being forced to drink large amounts of alcohol in a short span of time.

Uber is shutting down its self-driving truck program, nearly six months after it settled a lawsuit from Waymo, the Google spinoff that accused Uber of using its proprietary designs. Uber says it will keep working on self-driving vehicles, but it will now focus solely on cars.

"We've decided to stop development on our self-driving truck program and move forward exclusively with cars," said Eric Meyhofer, the head of Uber's advanced technologies unit.

Miss Helen the shark's weekend adventure is now over, after she was smuggled out of the San Antonio Aquarium in a baby stroller on Saturday. Police say they found the shark at the home of the main suspect in the heist. Both are now in captivity.

Video footage of the bizarre theft fed intense public curiosity — and led to solid tips from the public on the animal's likely whereabouts. Aquarium officials welcomed the shark back on Monday night.

A fractured shoulder blade, cobblestone roads, the Alps and Pyrenees: None was enough to stop U.S. cyclist Lawson Craddock from finishing the Tour de France on Sunday. Wearing number 13, he suffered a bad crash on the race's first day — and refused to quit.

The U.S. has freed journalist Emilio Gutierrez Soto from a holding facility in El Paso, Texas, hours before a federal judge's deadline for the government to produce documents to explain why it detained the Mexican asylum-seeker for nearly eight months.

It was the second time border officials have detained Gutierrez, who's been living in the U.S. for the past 10 years as he seeks asylum.

The 2018 Tour de France has been a race of misadventures for defending champion Chris Froome – who was accosted by a police officer after finishing Wednesday's stage of the race. The incident came one day after police sprayed the air with chemicals along the course, in an attempt to disrupt a protest that wound up forcing the race to stop.

Some 25,000 Cambodians raced to find higher ground after floodwaters spread to their province from a failed hydroelectric dam in neighboring Laos, according to state media in Cambodia. In Laos, the government says flooding has killed at least 27 people and destroyed the homes of more than 3,000 residents.

Suicide bombers struck an open-air market and other targets in the southern Syrian city of Sweida early Wednesday. The four attacks killed dozens of people and injured dozens more, local media say, in a region where the government has been fighting ISIS militants.

Sergio Marchionne, who led Fiat Chrysler to prosperity in the face of a stubborn recession and a host of other challenges, has died. He was 66. Just days ago, he stepped down from his role leading one of the world's largest car companies because of health problems.

Fiat Chrysler rushed to name a new CEO last weekend after it became clear that Marchionne would not be able to return to work. The widely admired executive had suffered complications from shoulder surgery, and his health rapidly deteriorated. He died at University Hospital in Zurich.

Ivanka Trump is closing her fashion company, saying her commitments in helping her father in Washington — and the limits imposed on her business as a result — have left her with no other option.

"After 17 months in Washington, I do not know when or if I will ever return to the business," Ivanka Trump said in a statement, "but I do know that my focus for the foreseeable future will be the work I am doing here in Washington, so making this decision now is the only fair outcome for my team and partners."

Several people reportedly were killed and hundreds of people were missing after the failure of a dam in the Xe Pian-Xe Namnoy hydroelectric project in southern Laos. The collapse of the dam, which is part of a larger dam network, has flooded villages and forced thousands of people to flee, state media report.